Osama bin Laden was a millionaire. He became a militant Islamic leader to eject Russians from Afghanistan.

Actually he was one of the many religious fundamentalists, who were financed by CIA to fight with Russians.

According to a London Times correspondent Simon Jenkins, “CIA preferred the most fanatic and cruel fighters they could mobilize. The end result was to destroy a moderate regime and create a fanatical one, from groups recklessly financed by the Americans”. (Chomsky, 2011)

Osama bin Laden turned against the US in 1990 after establishing the permanent base in Saudi Arabia because of its being a counterpart to Russia and as the guardian of divinest shrines.

According to the leading analyst the in New York Times, (Sept. 16), religious culprits always have had “hatred for the values cherished in the West as freedom, tolerance, prosperity, religious pluralism and universal suffrage.”

As a matter of fact, this is all a fight for power. In the name of jihad, Osama bin laden looked for “a great assault on Muslim states,” which caused the fundamentalists to justify for jihad (as a cause). (ibid, 2011).

The Afghanistan war infused Bin laden with power which made him a firm religious fanatic. War changes a man. The Afghan war certainly changed bin Laden.

The humble, young, monosyllabic millionaire with the open checkbook who first visited Pakistan in the 1980s would, by the middle of the decade launched an ambitious plan to confront the Soviets directly inside Afghanistan with a group of Arabs under his command.

That cadre of Arabs would provide the nucleus of al Qaeda, which was founded in 1988 to wage jihad around the Muslim world.

Bin Laden’s military ambitions and personality evolved in tandem. He became more assertive, to the point that he ignored the advice of many of his old friends about the folly of setting up his own military force. (Bergen 2006, 49)

The main aim of Osama bin laden was to stimulate his organization into a global force to create a caliphate and unite Muslims under one umbrella.

Inspired by Egyptian fundamentalist scholar SayyidQutib, who once wrote in his book “The Muslim community has long ago vanished from existence. It’s been extinct for a few centuries. How can this be? Well, without the ‘laws of God,’ i.e. Shari’ah law, Islam does not exist, so today’s Muslims, or people who call themselves Muslim, live not in an Islamic world, but in Jahiliyyah, pre-Islamic ignorance.” (Milestones 1964, 9)

Osama wanted to eliminate germs of secularism from Muslim countries. Osama bin Laden fought for power violently, that’s what jihad meant to him. That’s what jihad mean to most of the militants.

It doesn’t matter for jihadis who is hurt, as long they have the justification to present themselves as victims with justifiable platform. The truth is, nothing works better than religion.

If this religious fundamentalism had not worked for Laden then he would have done something else. But it might not have attracted worldwide response and reaction.

This religious extremism involves the killing of unbelievers in the name of Sharia. Converting people with fascism and fundamentalism makes the people, under influence,Sharia lovers with fear.

These fundamentalists want to ruin the global superpowers by engaging them in guerilla wars.

Osama bin Laden once said, “We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah… Using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, we, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat” (The Guar Gian, 2004).

Unfortunately, extremism is not just associated with Islam. It is also associated with secular groups. The agenda is to fight against strong enemy as well as dominancy through military and in technology and economic terms. ‘

However, fanatics use religious charms to attract volunteers. So religious extremism and emotional appeals are the key catalysts, working against the wisdom.

4 Comments

Faryal I must say that you have throughly studied the matter and so eloquently expressed it in a great flow. It seemed like you are narrating such a long story in brief and yet not omitting the salient features and events. I would add that this , which became OBL’s obsession , was actually masterminded by CIA to contain Soviet Union. It wouldn’t surprise me if OBL stayed a CIA operative to eventually let the American ground troops put steps on Afghan soil. I congratulate you to speak up against this matter which many won’t dare say anything on this sensitive issue in the current circumstances. You have this art of writing and I would like to see more of your write ups.

Islam itself is the cause of the terrorism all over the world and if you will look at the history, the origin of Islam is based on hate and violence principles….Centuries ago their folllowers from the Arabian soil spread the Islam through swords just by imposing the cruelty, atrocities,plundering,robbing and rapeing on the women and brutality… And converted whole Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt etc.. etc… into a Islamic countries which were once following the Hinduism, Bhuddhism ,Persian or Greek ideology at one time in the past…. The same strategy is being followed by the Islamic terrorists today to spread their centuries old wild and cruel ideas and thoughts all over the world which are completely irrelevant with this modern world…How can a religion made up of the terrorist, plunderer, rapists and radicals teaches the world the lessons of humanity, peace, respect to the women and service to the poor…. Just increasing the Islamic followers doesn’t make any sense ….

We can’t single out Islam in this regard. All the cultures who attained political and military power they plundered the lands. Pakistan need existed in those times. The history of every culture, Nation and People is ridden with violence. Hindustan did not invade any foreign land in the ancient history but they were fighting bettles among themselves. Islam is fairly a new movement in the context of history hence we know more about the violence. Had we been living in the eras of greeks and romans we might have the same opinion about them. Interestingly, we praise Alexander as a hero and we name our kids after him but conveniently ignore the violence he committed against many nations. Muslims did not know anything different what Nations have not done in the past or not doing now. The violence committed by USA, Europe, India, Israel, Russia are ignored— why?
Islamophobia is a new trend to claim ” scholarly credentials”.